These are easilty the best oatmeal cookies ever. They join snickerdoodles, chocolate chip cookies, and chocolate pixies as among my all-time favorites.
I found the basic recipe at SugarSpunRun. Hers is for chocolate chip cookies. That’s where I found her brown-butter chocolate chip cookies recipe which is also on my favorites list. This one I modified slightly based on an older oatmeal cookie recipe that I’ve since lost.
For the version here, I’ve eliminated the choclate chips and used instead chopped walnuts. I’ve added a few things to the ingredients, and rolled the cookies in granulated sugar prior to baking them. The result is the softest, chewiest cookie imaginable.
Some tips for making cookies. First, I really recommend getting silicon baking mats for your cookie sheets. These come in standard stizes for professional baking pans, which are a bit larger than the cooking sheet that usually comes with bakeware sets. The size diifference doesn’t really matter, and the sheets make clean-up a snap.
Second, I always use nitril gloves when making cookies. In fact, I use nitril gloves most of the time when I’m cooking and handling food.
Thrid, cookie scoops are another handy tool, especially to get evenly-sized cookies.
Fourth, this recipe calls for flaked salt. This really adds to the flavor these cookies, and is well worth obtaining. However, it’s most likely not in your grocery store. You can get it from Amazon pretty cheaply, though.
Finally, if you’ve never browned butter before, just be careful not to burn it. The recipe gives you some clues when to take it off heat and pour it into your bowl. Also, be sure to let it cool at least thirty minutes before adding sugar or eggs to it.
Brown Butter Oatmeal Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 C 226 g unsalted butter
- 1 C 200g dark brown sugar light brown is ok
- 1/2 C 100 G granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs at room temperature
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp almond extract optional—my addition
- 2 1/3 C 292 g all-purpose flour
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 TBSP corn starch optional–my addition
- 1 TSP salt
- 1 TSP cinnamon o0ptional–my addition
- 2 C 160g old-fashioned rolled oats
- 1 C 170 g chopped walnuts My addition–voume meaure is an estimabe
- 1/2 C granulated sugar for rolling cookies My addition
- Flake salt for dusting
Instructions
- Brown the butter. Cube the butter and place it in a mdeium-sized skillet or sauce pan over medium-low heat until melted. Increase to medium-high heat and cook, stirring as the butter sizzles and pops. Scrape the bottom of the pan as deep brown specks begin to form. The butter will foam and then settle down as the milk solids settle in the bottom of the pan and turn brown. This is your cue to take the pan off the burner and pour the butter into a heat-proof bowl. (I use the bowl of my stand mixer.) Do not leave the butter in the pan as residual heat can turn browned butter to burned butter!
- Now WAIT at least thirty minutes for the butter to cool to room temperature. If it's too warm, you will melt the sugars and scramble the eggs–not what we want for cookies! I usually wait at least 45 minutes. This is a good time to take your eggs out of the refrigerator so they will also be room temprature.
- While you are waiting, in a separate bowl you can mix together the flour, baking power, baking soda, salt, and–if using–the corn starch and cinnamon. You could do the oats and nuts now too, but you'd need to get another bowl dirty since they don't go in the dough at the same time as the other dry ingredients. For this reason, I usually do these at the end of mixing the dough rather than now.
- Once the butter is cool, add the sugars and cream the butter and sugars together. I use the middlle setting on my stand mixer and mix for about five minutes. The result should be creamed, not granular.
- Next, add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each egg.
- Finally, add the vanilla extract and, if using, almond extract. Don't overdo the almond extract, as it is quite strong.
- Next, add the dry ingredients (but not the oatmeal yet!) in thirds to the butter and sugar mixture, mixing thoroughly after eacfh addition. For each addition, I start my mixner on the lowest setting to avoid flour flying everywhere, and then increase gradually to the middle setting until all the flour is mixed.
- If you haven't already, measure and chop the nuts, and measure the oats. You can mix these together in the bowl that held the flour.
- With the mixer on low, add the nuts/oats mixture to the dough in thirds. Don't overmix.
- The dough is moderately sticky, so I usually refrigerate for 30 minutes. Since I regriegerate the dough, this is when I pre-heat my oven to 350F.
- Form the dough into walnut-sized balls. I used a 1 TBSP cookie scoop to get the amount of dough constant. Roll the balls in granulated sugar and place 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet lined with silicon cooking sheets or parhment paper. Press lightly on each ball to make them into squat cylinders.
- Bake for 9-11 minutes, depending on your oven.
- Remove and dust with flake salt. Let cool in the pan for about ten minutes, and another ten to twenty minutes before storing.
Be First to Comment